


Scars

by BlueForestFox



Category: World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft (Comics), World of Warcraft - Various Authors
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, F/F, Feelings, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Marriage, So much fluff it's disgusting, literally just an emotional trainwreck with too many feelings, soft-vanas and jaina being emotional, sylvaina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:27:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26203414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueForestFox/pseuds/BlueForestFox
Summary: Jaina and Sylvanas have an overly emotional night. Mostly this is just lots of FEELINGS about the hurts and losses that both characters have suffered and how to even deal with/acknowledge that when you CARE about someone. Ridiculous angsty emotional fluff and nothing but.
Relationships: Jaina Proudmoore/Sylvanas Windrunner
Comments: 11
Kudos: 114





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> As aforementioned: not a fan of canon Sylvanas but I have so much love for the Sylvaina community on AO3 that I will write ALL THE THINGS. This one is basically exactly as described--too much emotional angst and fluff in their marriage. One night Jaina is sad-nostalgic and it all kind of snowballs. Lots of FEELINGS.

Nights this warm were a rare thing in Kul Tiras, when skies cleared and a gentle breeze pulled in soft air heavy with the smell of the sea. Jaina had relished them when she was young, running barefoot in the courtyard, or finding some high vantage point amidst the walls where she could sit and watch the sun set like a burning orb over the sea. She would stay out and watch the stars as they winked into existence over the fading bloom of color in the west as it shifted from orange, to ruddy purple.

She stood on the balcony, the air tugging gently at her dress, and looked down at her bare feet, unable to suppress a smile. How different it had been then. At that age she had needed to stand on her tip toes to peer over the hard stone edge her hands rested comfortably on now. She could see to the harbor from here, the light stretching the shadows in the streets as the sun sank further into the west.

She had oft wondered as a child what worlds lay beyond that horizon, and imagined distant shores filled with the wonders she had read tales of as a child. Wonders yes, and horrors too. The weight of her thoughts dragged her from her nostalgic revelry, pulling her mercilessly back to the present. She loved the sea, she always had, but now every time she looked at it, she thought of N’Zoth. The present had a way of making reminiscence somewhat lackluster, the present war against an Old God draining even her appreciation for a glimmering summer sunset.

She chewed her lip and ran a hand through her hair. Times change. That is the way of it. Her only comfort was to wonder if by bearing the burdens she did, perhaps others could, for a time, enjoy the beauty of the world without being weighed down by heavy cares. She stood awhile longer, watching the light fade. Stars began to shine, mirrored by torches and lanterns lit in the street below. The sound of waves carried above the murmur of the city streets, and Jaina breathed the sweet air before turning back to their room.

The curtains fluttered like translucent ghosts as she stepped past them and into the quiet half-light. The lamp by the bedside, feebly casting its glow into even the most remote corners where shadows played. Sylvanas sat by the bedside, boots, cloak and bow gone, having undergone the somewhat laborious process of removing her armor. Jaina sat at the small table and picked up the book she had been reading earlier, and flipped it open.

The words failed to draw her interest, and she found her gaze sliding idly over the page. If her mind would not acquiesce to read, she could at least pretend, so she held it open and worried the corner of an old dry page with her thumb.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

Sylvanas did not even turn around as she carefully finished removing her bracers.

“Warm nights put me in a pensive mood.” Jaina mumbled idly. Her wife did turn at that, and raised a perfect silvery-white brow. Jaina offered only a fleeting glance over her book, as the Banshee Queen resumed her task. The two remained in relative silence for a few moments more before Jaina closed the book in an irritated fashion.

“Would you like some help?” She asked, standing.

Sylvanas shot her a wary glance. “I’m not sure either of us has the energy tonight. You least of all by the looks of it.” She managed to sound only mildly haughty. Jaina bristled slightly.

“That’s not what I meant.” She didn’t mean for it to come out as a sigh. “I actually just meant to help you with---”

“If you wish.” Sylvanas tilted her head and regarded Jaina. There was something about the mage this night, some weariness to her gaze, a weight that Sylvanas could not see that hung heavy about Jaina’s shoulders. She didn’t need help with her armor, but that wasn’t what mattered. Jaina, expecting a heated refusal, was admittedly surprised. She stepped forward as Sylvanas stood and the two set to work with the buckles on the sides of the Banshee Queen’s breastplate.

Sylvanas had become accustomed to Jaina’s touch, and did not shy or stiffen as the mage slowly stripped her of her remaining armor. It had taken time, for both of them in truth. Sylvanas especially had grown unaccustomed to any physical approach that was not backed by malicious intent, she had all but forgotten what it felt like to be touched by someone who was not actively trying to murder her. Had she not been the Banshee Queen she might have even been embarrassed by her initial ineptitude at receiving such a basic gesture of physical interaction. As it was, she had simply resorted to the safe route of remaining stand-offish and withdrawn.

Slowly though, the two of them had changed. In increments at times too small to notice until they had already passed---a hand on a shoulder, or a knee, a cautious interlocking of fingers---they had become accustomed to each other’s touch. Making love had been entirely more complex, and taken time. Time and trust. It was a dance. One that even now, both of them were still learning the steps to, and one that neither of them would have imagined wanting or needing as they did.

Jaina carefully slipped the tight ringed mail down from Sylvanas’ waist, carefully placing it in a shimmering heap near the neatly stacked armor. Sylvanas took a step back and stripped away the thin padding she wore beneath the leather, mail and plate until she stood completely naked, the light from the lamp flickering over her ethereally light skin. She turned to retrieve her night gown, but Jaina’s gentle hand on her wrist stopped her.

“...wait.” Jaina’s voice was as soft as her touch. Sylvanas again raised an eyebrow.

“I thought you had said---” Sylvanas began in a dry tone, but Jaina silenced her with a small shake of her head. She was staring intently at Sylvanas’ chest.

Jaina had seen the scar many a time before, touched it, even, but not the way she did now. Her hand extended slowly, as if she approached an animal that might spook or startle, her fingers only gently touching the still-rough flesh. Her touch was not sensual, or aggressive, she simply regarded the shape of the old wound, the way in which it never truly healed because at the time, it had been fatal. It was a great gouged mark just below the line of Sylvanas’ breasts, slightly offset to the left of her chest, a line the passed between ribs and betrayed the touch of a massive blade that had cleaved all the way to her heart.

Sylvanas flinched slightly under the mage’s touch, her brows furrowed. Jaina had not spoken of it before, more for desire of avoiding painful memories than anything else, but as her own past wound through her thoughts on the warm summer air, she couldn’t help but think of what had once been, and all that had been lost.

Jaina knew loss. She knew pain. She did not know death as the once high-elf before her, the woman she had come to love, did. Was it not enough to lose a homeland? To know that you had failed to protect what was most dear to you, but that your own soul be taken and twisted? Jaina wanted to say something. All her life the pain of her losses had cauterized into the desire to protect the world, to bring peace. But never once had she offered herself any tenderness, it had always been about retribution, revenge, or the need to prevent such loss from happening again. It had always been transformed into something to propel her forward, lest she be dragged down by it. She doubted Sylvanas carried her own hurts in a way any different. For how could she? The world they lived in had no room for it, no time, it was always one conflict after the next, and the scars to remind you of why you kept going. What you were fighting for.

“Sylvanas…” She started hesitantly, and trailed off, the Banshee Queen still frowning slightly, frozen under her delicate touch. What could she say? What could she possibly say? Words felt useless and feeble, even the words with which she won friends and spurned enemies seemed to fall so utterly short of expressing the strange pang she felt now.

“I’m sorry.”

It felt small, even ridiculous to say. Sorry for what? Sorry you were mercilessly murdered and your soul ripped from you? Sorry you watched the scourge defile your homeland? Sorry for a million horrible things that you have had to bear and keep locked under the rigid visage of someone who just endures and doggedly persists because there is no other option? Not if we want peace. Our scars remind us of what we fight for.

Jaina’s eyes flicked up to meet Sylvanas’ gaze, the reflection of the lamplight betraying small pools of moisture that formed below her shimmering grey-blue iris’. Sylvanas found herself in the unfamiliar position of having no idea what to do. No one had ever said such a thing, had offered simply empathy, however small it may seem. It had always been tied to something, they had wanted something or needed something or tried to please. Jaina had suffered her own share of loss, she knew some of that pain, and she made her own small offering of empathy with nothing attached and nothing asked. It was both simple and momentous in its own strange way and Sylvanas was surprised to find that she almost could not let it in.

She wanted no pity, but this wasn’t pity. She had grown so accustomed to harshness that she found she had to struggle to not brush the mage’s sentiment aside, to not keep her walls stiff and unyielding as this one moment threatened to slip by them. Part of her still believed, small and angry though it was, that empathy in such was weakness.

But Jaina was not weak. She had a spirit more unbreakable than any the Banshee Queen had known; it was something the two of them saw in each other. And Jaina’s eyes now, the way she looked at her wife, and the way she spoke as she gently reached out and acknowledged a wound so deep…

It was the way Jaina looked at her that gave Sylvanas the immense strength she needed to let the mage’s words in. To let her empathy in, as her eyes held Sylvanas’ gaze and carried deep in them a hurt and upset that seemed to say  _ ‘this will never be enough, I know it is not enough, but it is all I can do’. _

Sylvanas pressed a hand over the back of Jaina’s, her expression softening after almost a full minute in silence as she wrestled with all her strength and finally managed to let Jaina’s words in. Again, perhaps Jaina had expected her to shrug it off, or have some idle comment as Sylvanas likely would have. They were both surprised, and Sylvanas’ expression softened and she leaned forward to place a soft kiss on her wife’s cheek. Her lips were cool, and her voice soft, so much so that Jaina could barely hear her.

“…Thank you, Dalah’surfal.” They stood for a moment longer, the breeze from the open balcony playing gently through the room and making the bedside lamp dance, casting wild shadows. Sylvanas finally turned and pulled on a night gown as Jaina remained, standing silently with heavy shoulders. Sylvanas gently took her hand and pulled her down towards the bed, laying out as the mage stretched out beside her. The night was still too warm even for the sheets, and both of them too weary to do much but hold each other.

But that was enough.

Jaina watched the shadows move across the walls as Sylvanas gently ran a hand through the mage’s hair. The two laid there in the quiet as the lamp sputtered down and eventually went out, sleep finally claiming them as the night wind swirled through the room and carried the sound of the sea.

  
  
  



End file.
